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The U.S. and its European partners have agreed to extend the interim nuclear deal with Iran while continuing to work towards a comprehensive, permanent agreement. But certain elements in Congress are pushing for new sanctions, which would violate the interim deal and kill the talks. Take Action >

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Right now, Syrian insurgents that the U.S. is arming and their allies are pressing President Obama to approve the transfer of "manpads" to Syrian insurgents. These shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons that can be used to shoot down civilian aircraft. Their transfer would increase the risk of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond and violate international agreements to control these weapons that the U.S. helped put in place. These are key reasons that the Administration has not agreed to transfer manpads to Syria, and why the Obama Administration should resist pressure to change its position.

Rep. Peter Welch [D-VT] and Rep. John Conyers [D-MI] are leading efforts in Congress to push back against the dangerous demand to send manpads to Syria.

Rep. Welch is sending a letter to President Obama today urging him to resist pressure to send manpads to Syria. Rep. Conyers is introducing an amendment during the upcoming consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] to explicitly bar the transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles–“manpads”–to Syrian rebels.

Your Representative has been identified as crucial to the success of these efforts.Urge Rep. Rosa DeLauro to support Rep. Welch and Rep. Conyers in working to block the transfer of manpads to Syria.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121 and ask to be transferred to your Representative’s office. When you reach the office, say:

I urge you to support Congressional efforts led by Rep. Peter Welch and Rep. John Conyers to block the transfer of manpads to Syrian rebels. If transferred to Syria, these weapons are likely to fall into the hands of terrorists who will use them against civilian aircraft. I urge you to support Rep. Welch's letter to the President opposing the transfer of these weapons and I urge you to support Rep. Conyers' amendment on the NDAA to explicitly prohibit the transfer of these weapons.

A new documentary reveals that CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have been carried out by regular U.S. Air Force personnel. Former U.S. drone pilot Brandon Bryant says:

"... the lie is that it's always been the air force that has flown those missions. The CIA might be the customer but the air force has always flown it. A CIA label is just an excuse to not have to give up any information. That is all it has ever been."

Members of the House can do something very simple to address this. They can co-sponsor the Schiff-Jones bill, which would require the government to report on who is being killed by drone strikes.

Call the Congressional switchboard at 202-225-3121, ask to be connected to your Representative’s office, and say:

I’m calling to ask Rep. ____ to co-sponsor H.R.4372, the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act. This bipartisan bill would require the government to report on who is being killed by U.S. drone strikes, including how many civilians. The American people have the right to know what is being done in our name. You can co-sponsor the bill by contacting Rep. Adam Schiff’s office or Rep. Walter Jones’ office.

US EFFORTS TO CURB FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON ISRAEL AND PALESTINE, OF GRAVE CONCERN

I am writing today to express grave concern about a wave of legislative measures in the United States aimed at punishing and intimidating those who speak their conscience and challenge the human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people. In legislatures in Maryland, New York, Illinois, Florida, and even the United States Congress, bills have been proposed that would either bar funding to academic associations or seek to malign those who have taken a stand against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

These legislative efforts are in response to a growing international initiative, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, of which I have long been a supporter. The BDS movement emanates from a call for justice put out by the Palestinian people themselves. It is a Palestinian-led, international non-violent movement that seeks to force the Israeli government to comply with international law in respect to its treatment of the Palestinian people.

A few weeks ago, we sent out an action alert about a letter being circulated by Rep. Jim Moran in the House calling on the White House to take necessary steps to ensure that medicine imports are not impeded by US sanctions. Despite trade in medicines being protect by both US and international law, and the granting of exemptions and licenses for medicines and other humanitarian goods, US sanctions are still contributing to a medicine shortage in Iran.

The letter closes at the end of the day Wednesday, so call your Rep today!

Call your Rep at 1-855-686-6927 and say

I urge you to sign Rep. Jim Moran's letter urging the White House to take necessary action to ensure U.S. sanctions do not block medicine, food, and licensed humanitarian goods from reaching the Iranian people.

Here are some additional talking points:

- Tens of thousands of Iranian civilians with treatable illnesses have suffered unnecessarily and unjustly because of medicine shortages created in part by US sanctions even though trade is medicines is supposed to be protected by both US and international law.
- Congress has exempted medicine, food, and humanitarian goods from sanctions, and the Administration has issued licenses for these goods. However, there are few non-sanctioned financial channels available and many banks have been unwilling to facilitate humanitarian transactions due to sanctions.

The ACLU of Illinois opposes Senate Joint Resolution 59, a resolution that calls upon all Illinois college and university presidents to publicly condemn academic boycotts.

A boycott is an important and powerful form of protected expressive association protected by the First Amendment. Speech and nonviolent picketing in support of a boycott encompasses the practice of people sharing common views banding together to achieve a common end, a practice deeply embedded in the American political process. By this collective effort, individuals can make their views known when, individually, their voices would be faint or lost. In emphasizing the importance of the freedom of association in guaranteeing the right of people to make their voices heard on public issues, the U.S. Supreme Court has noted that effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982).

There is no basis in law or policy to exempt academic institutions from boycotts. Would Illinois support a resolution guarding Bob Jones University from a boycott when, in the 1970’s because of its interpretation of Biblical principles regarding interracial dating, Bob Jones University completely excluded black applicants? We expect not.

CPC CO-CHAIRS CALL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT ON DRONES: HUMAN RIGHTS MUST BE A PRIORITY

WASHINGTON — Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) released the following statement after a vote by the United Nations Human Rights Council on the use of drones:

“Today’s vote at the United Nations reinforces the need for greater oversight of the U.S. drone program. Instead of working closely with the international community to help strengthen current international standards on the use of drones, the U.S. government decided to boycott a discussion of the draft resolution. We are troubled by the ease with which dialogue and diplomacy—values at the center of the president’s foreign policy—were cast aside in this debate.

“Our national security would be stronger with international standards regarding the use of drones. No country has a monopoly on armed drone technology. As of 2011, 76 nations had drone technology of some kind. It is clearly in our interest to help establish the norms and rules that will govern the use of drones by all nations in the future.

“Similarly, it’s important to ensure that the American people and our allies understand the legal justification and on-the-ground impact of our drone policy. The current lack of transparency harms our relationships with other countries and erodes our ability to collaborate on key global security issues.

The Obama Administration has established a new precedent by implementing sanctions against Russian officials for violations of international law in the wake of Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea. So we thought: let's get civil society organizations in the United States and around the world to invoke this precedent in calling U.S. officials to account for the U.S.'s own violations of international law!

John Brennan, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, is playing a central role in shielding the agency from accountability to international law on three key issues: the CIA's use of torture during the Bush Administration; the CIA’s use of drone strikes; and the CIA’s arming of Syria rebels, which the Obama Administration has acknowledged is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty under international law, [1] just as Russia’s actions in Crimea violate Ukraine’s sovereignty under international law.

Join us in calling for boycott and sanctions on John Brennan until the CIA takes concrete steps to comply with international law by signing our petition at MoveOn:

John Brennan, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, should be subject to boycott and sanctions for the CIA's failure to comply with U.S. and international law. John Brennan should not receive any award, honor, or recognition until the CIA takes concrete, minimal steps to transparently comply with U.S. and international law, including:

- supporting declassification of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's use of torture and the CIA's internal “Panetta review” on the CIA's use of torture;

Note: this memo is primarily aimed at tech-savvy kids, not at old fogie technophobe Luddites. If you are a technophobe, move along, nothing to see here.

Background: the world has changed, right? We do online petitions now. It's more efficient on both sides of the interaction - easier to pass, easier to sign; you don't have to mess around with re-copying or trying to read people's illegible handwriting (speaking as a top offender of illegible handwriting); if you sign on your own device, you probably have your own information already saved in your browser, which makes signing go tschik-tschok, as they say in Hebrew.

OK, but we still want to pass petitions at events. Does that mean we have to go back to pen and paper?

You know how when you ride the Amtrak, and sometimes on planes, they use QR codes, so you don't need a paper ticket. You just hold up your smart phone showing your electronic ticket with the QR code on it and the conductor/airline employee uses a QR reader to capture the information from your electronic ticket's QR code.

We can use this technology for online petitions too. You generate a QR code for the website that has the petition on it, you point a smart phone (or laptop's) camera at it, and after the image is captured, the smartphone jumps to the URL of the petition site, where you can sign the petition on your smartphone.

The smartphone or laptop has to have a QR reader installed. But you can easily download QR readers for free. Just go to the app store on your device, search for "QR reader", and choose one of many free options. On my iPhone, I have installed the free QRReader app.

So, with that background concluded, here is the ask. I'm going to try to get signers on the Illinois anti-anti-boycott petition at Rabbi Brant Rosen's talk tonight at UIUC, using a QR code that Just Foreign Policy has generated for the petition's website.